Air conditioners, in the following referred to ACs, are widespread devices to cool an environment, such as a room, to a desired temperature. In the context of the present disclosure, also devices able to cool and/or heat an environment, such as HVACs (Heating, ventilation and air conditioning devices) may be regarded within the meaning of an AC.
There is a great variety of different remote controls to control ACs of different manufacturers. Furthermore universal remote controls are known which are configured to control different types of ACs.
However, all such remote controls rely on a user to check whether a desired state of the AC is actually set via the remote control. This is usually unproblematic if a user is in the room that is cooled with the AC. In this case, the user can simply look at the display of the AC to check its state.
However, the applicant has recently envisaged smart control devices dedicated to controlling an AC based on a user behaviour or location, as described in the German patent application with the application number 10 2014 009 414.6 filed on 24 Jun. 2014. Such a smart control device may turn off the AC automatically after the user has left the room and/or the control device may turn on the AC automatically when the user location is close to the room cooled by the AC. In particular in these cases, the user may not be in a position to verify whether the control device properly sets a desired AC state. If, for instance, a turn-off control signal sent by the control device is not properly received by the AC, the AC may remain turned on for hours or days, thus wasting energy in large amounts.